


Our Names in a Heart

by ForASecondThereWedWon



Series: Resting Glitch Face [6]
Category: WandaVision (TV)
Genre: (mostly for what you know is coming in canon), Angst, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Developing Relationship, Episode: s01e08 Previously On, F/M, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, POV Vision (Marvel), Plans For The Future, Television Watching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:15:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29721951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForASecondThereWedWon/pseuds/ForASecondThereWedWon
Summary: Wanda watches sitcoms. Vision watches Wanda.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: Resting Glitch Face [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121495
Comments: 30
Kudos: 220





	Our Names in a Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is so sad. Alexa, play "Wanda's Theme."

“Wanda, may I say something?” Vision asks.

His host halts in the process of queuing up the next episode of _I Love Lucy_. Oh, he does enjoy this show, particularly the zany moments of tension arising from the heroine failing to effectively synchronize her actions with those of the machine at which she works. People and technology are able to exist so harmoniously now, he thinks, expression soft as he studies Wanda’s face.

“Alright.”

She gives him a reassuring smile and his own grows in confidence. He’s noticed this about her: she’s usually more at ease the further back into television history they probe. Though still frequently standoffish, and even cold, when questioned directly about her past, she has revealed bits and pieces to him, enough that he understands the significance of sitcoms in her life. They are a tie to her childhood, a reminder that comforts rather than aggrieves. She is less defensive as she retreads the familiar ground of the Ricardo residence with her eyes.

“I’ve noticed a pattern with many of these shows. Now, I know I’m not meant to be analyzing them,” he adds before she can interrupt. “Believe me, it’s nothing so very astute. Perhaps so obvious that you would not consider it anything worth remarking upon.”

“Well, now I’m curious,” Wanda says, leaning back against the wall and holding a cushion to her stomach.

He has observed this behaviour in her before, but it’s gentler now. She doesn’t squeeze the cushion to her body or grip until the ends of her fingers turn white. The motion is relaxed, like her posture. Vision has been entirely alert to the gradual changes as they pass largely conversation-free hours watching television together. The way Wanda leaves the door to her room open in invitation when she desires his company. The fact that they’re no longer seated on the edge of the mattress but all the way back, the stand on which her television sits wheeled to the foot of the bed. With these physical signs, she’s begun to let him in. Her thoughts though… her feelings… They are not so easily accessed.

“You tend to prefer series featuring… families.” He hesitates briefly before the last word, wary of upsetting her, but the lull of the 1950s sitcom they’ve been watching appears to hold.

“Yes, they… remind me of better times.”

“Of course. Frequently, these families have children.”

Wanda smiles absently, staring at nothing.

“Pietro and I used to replicate what we could. I’m not sure which was the greatest gulf to span—limitations because of the war that raged around us or the differences between Sokovian and American culture. Certain children’s antics are universal, though they only ever made Mama and Papa laugh rather than scold, but we would also pretend that Pietro had to practice for football tryouts, or that I had some trivial crisis the day before the prom. We had such an incomplete picture—” Though her laugh is short, it warms him. “—but that imaginary world seemed so rich, so big.”

“Do you see yourself in them still? The children?”

Yesterday, she introduced him to _The Brady Bunch_. There were so very many children in that series into whose lives she may have wanted to step.

She blinks and Vision’s sorry to have pulled her from her memories.

“Somewhere in between,” Wanda says. “It’s the feeling of it. The completeness. The children will always cause trouble, the parents will always protect them. The parents encounter their own obstacles, which are always hidden from the children. It’s all ridiculous, but… the love is real.”

“Especially on this one,” he suggests, gesturing towards the television. “The stars were married in real life.”

“True. Even when they’re just actors, the illusion can be enough.”

“You were never bored? Some of these series ran for many, many seasons. The children grow up.”

“And the parents grow old.”

A tear escapes the corner of her eye and Vision leans towards her, alarmed, but she swipes it away on the cuff of her shirt.

“They begin to, anyway,” Wanda corrects, that momentary pinch of melancholy vanishing from her features. “The shows always end while the actors still look young.”

“Hmm. Yes.”

Vision settles back against the rails of her bedframe. He won’t press her any further, doesn’t want his perhaps needling questions to perforate this sanctuary she seems to construct every time they sit down next to each other and fix their gazes on the glow of the screen, laughing at so many silly, happy families.

Wanda sighs and shifts. Their hands brush and Vision stares at them, flying rapidly through his established protocols in search of a suitable reaction, but she slips her fingers between his before he has an answer. The music of the next episode starts and he sees the heart appear on the screen, his eyes following the path of the line that traces it. How safe the actors’ names seem within it. A cartoonish symbol of love, yet also promise, stability, and one that is never misunderstood.

He never tells her, but part of the reason for this routine of imposing his presence in the evenings is to help her through the loneliest hours. If he remains with Wanda until she begins drawing her blankets up over her legs and closing her eyes during the title sequence, Vision knows she’ll fall asleep soon after he departs. Before this began, it was during these hours that he would hear her muffled crying. He doesn’t mean to impede the natural course of her grief. He hopes he isn’t doing that. He only intends to smooth the road she must take, ideally by distracting her with the occasional discussion on the periphery of her feelings, or else by simply sitting quietly at her side.

Tonight, he drifts out of her room with an idea. A foolish idea, an incomplete plan. The kind of ill-conceived scheme that a character on one of Wanda’s favourite shows might attempt and face the obvious consequences of shortly after. He’ll keep it private. He’ll “oh, nothing” it away when she catches him staring at her consideringly and asks what he’s thinking about. But on the inside, Vision will dream.

It will begin with an evening like this. The two of them, watching television. A room where she can feel at home within a building where she feels safe. He will find the walls and she will be the life between them. It will be after all of this conflict, when her grief is smaller and her love doesn’t have to work quite so hard to persevere. Returning her family’s home to her is impossible, but a different one? With a love just as real? One where the years may pass and pass and pass, his own face unchanging, his back never to hunch and his heart never to tire? Will she accept this clumsy charade of how it could be to grow old together when he offers it?

Could she sleep where the door was always open?

He never wants to be more than a room away when he leaves her.


End file.
